


devils roll the dice

by codename



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Enemies to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25171828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codename/pseuds/codename
Summary: Nayeon makes too many mistakes, and Mina doesn't know how to fix her own. So they settle things. The fangless way.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Myoui Mina
Comments: 9
Kudos: 86
Collections: Shot Thru the Heart: A Writing Collection





	devils roll the dice

**Author's Note:**

> title from cruel summer

A lot of people are born into things. Into poverty and royalty. Some people believe that they have a choice, that what they’re born into isn’t the set course for their life.

Nayeon believes, maybe, someone skipped over her when giving such an opportunity.

Because being born into a life that never stops until wood or silver pierces through your chest is not something she would’ve chosen. To live a life constantly hurting others, because that’s the only way to.

Nayeon traces the side of her head, her pale skin tinted a deep cherry.

If she had calculated correctly, Jihyo’s return would be soon.

In any case, the closest thing the vampires had to a government was the council. Which Nayeon had been excluded from when she was eleven, for tens of thousands of years, on the basis of murder.

(Being blamed for the death of her father is one thing. But admitting to _actually_ doing such a thing, Nayeon doesn’t want to remember.)

And if a vampire, particularly any affiliated with Nayeon, waltzed into the territory of the Eastern coven, then things were bound to get messy.

Which is why Jihyo’s crow form comes particularly handy.

Nayeon prepared for her slightly more level-headed counterpart to come crashing between the open panes any second. She had missed plotting her revenge against the council (something that never sees the light), which remained part of her daily routine.

Nayeon’s ear twitches when she senses the cold blood out the window.

“Do you see this?” Nayeon says proudly, feeling the wind carry over from Jihyo’s perfect landing. “I’ve got another hole in my head.”

She doesn’t turn, though. It’s a silly thing to admit when you’re as old and experienced as she is.

Jihyo sighs, black feathers fluttering towards the floor. Better that Nayeon doesn’t notice. “You got shot again?”

“This is the seventh time she went storming into the woods by herself,” Dahyun confirms, stepping into the room unannounced. “Here.”

She’s carrying a platter of assorted vials, varying in shades of red. They’re mostly for Jihyo. Nayeon recalls something about the shifted state decreasing thirst levels but once returned it skyrockets past the normal. It’s an unnecessary risk, she thinks. But it has its benefits.

But tonight, as Dahyun dutifully reaffirmed, Nayeon got shot in the head. That’s considerably harder to heal than a graze or a shattered bone. Immortality is a gift, but the constant intake of blood and having to avoid the consequences of a lack thereof seemed a punishment.

“That needs to heal,” Dahyun says, before Nayeon protests. “At this point, they’re purposely trying not to kill you.”

“Which is annoying,” Nayeon acknowledges it. But the smile is still plastered across her face.

“Incredibly.”

She’s bracing for another ridiculous idea.

“But I’m not feeding.”

There it is.

Dahyun leans against the case of Im family heirlooms, feebly trying to ward off a prospective headache.

“I’m not letting you go ravenous just so you’re stronger and you can kill a couple of wannabe vampire hunters.”

“Which, again, is annoying,” Nayeon repeats, letting her hair cover the gaping hole in her temple. She’s heard the lecture before, and it’s maddeningly frustrating to be lectured by someone like Dahyun.

Nayeon turns suddenly, raising a finger. “But how sure are we that these aren’t just some of Mina’s lackeys?”

Dahyun raises a brow. Nayeon can be reasonable when she wants to, but it’s not always a wonderful feeling when it involves scenarios that would most likely end up in another war.

“Or Sana is baiting you to attack her,” Jihyo adds. It doesn’t really help.

“Always pulling the strings,” Nayeon doesn’t have a single good memory on the witch leader. “Though I’m not entirely opposed to her plan. Whatever’s Sana’s scheming.”

“It’s like you want to be banished for the rest of your life,” Dahyun sighs, a thumb tracing the outline of her lips. Blood seemed a distraction for the embodiment of annoyance opposite her. “You’re going to side with a witch to attack a person you’ve never met before?”

“She’s a Myoui. That’s a good enough reason. And because you’re a Kim, and you’re a Park, you should hate them too. Unless you want to announce you’ve suddenly dropped our thousand-year old family alliance.”

Jihyo expects more damaging threats, but Nayeon is tired. She can sense it.

“No-one,” Jihyo begins, though it’s more weary than enthusiastic. “No-one wants another war. The Myoui family loves old laws, which is only natural since Mina’s father was head of the council. Meaning they only involve themselves if asked.”

“And you’re particularly famous for never adhering to such old traditions,” Dahyun adds between her sip, somewhat spiteful.

“I mean, look, you abandoned your father’s manor for a penthouse.”

Jihyo exhales. Off-topic, but it somehow mattered. She didn’t miss a chance to berate Nayeon for severing every tie she had with the late Count after his death, which included the now abandoned mansion in the woods.

“Listen, from what I heard; witches don’t care for vampiric affairs—"

“Unless it concerns them…” Nayeon interrupts. “Does she thrive off being nosy?”

“Or, maybe, she’s genuinely tired of it all,” Dahyun adds. She knows it’s far from the truth, but it offers Nayeon a second of comfort. “She’s been watching the Ims and Myouis fuel this silly battle for centuries.”

“This is her way of winning? Pinning us against each other so we start a fight?”

Jihyo and Dahyun both shrug. There never was a set time for these things. In Nayeon’s case, this was inevitable.

Mina hates water.

Running bodies of water, holy water, even drinking water was useless. But the storm came as a blessing. Or a welcomed guest, to be secular. In fact, Mina’s a little tired of umbrellas and avoiding water on the off-chance it’s sacred.

So yes, she will walk in the rain.

Drenched.

In the earthly, un-sanctified downpour.

And as if the journey into the city was hard enough, Mina sighs twice.

One for the sound of Tzuyu growling at the closed door of Jeongyeon’s office, and one for the seeds sprawled across her novelty welcome mat that Mina is discouragingly compelled to count.

Three-hundred and… something.

The wind has perfectly torturous timing.

“Jeongyeon,” Mina urges, her gaze sweeping across the floor obsessively. “Open the damn door.”

And so it opens.

By pure force.

Mina is patient, but the air of outrage and bitterness that comes with completely obliterating a door with one swift kick is perfect. It’s big-screen worthy, like the perfect one-take. Typically there’s a cue for a cowering body appearing in view once the debris of the hit reaches the floor.

Instead…

Of course.

Jeongyeon is laughing.

Though it’s a vile sound, Mina thinks. A human being so happy. Particularly this long-legged, bespectacled nuisance.

“I wanted to see if it was true,” Jeongyeon reasons, but Mina is unimpressed. “And it is. You can’t help but count _seeds._ ”

“There’s three-hundred and forty-two,” Mina says, though it’s alarmingly stern for a half-attempt at working with Jeongyeon’s banter.

Mina skips the apologies for the door as she casually steps over the broken pieces of fiberglass. Jeongyeon plucks at her lab coat’s lapel nervously, observing a shackled Tzuyu with her.

“I have one more pouch of that blood-type,” Jeongyeon offers, already scurrying over to the storage.

If Mina rejects her first try, then there’s no use repeating herself. To an outside eye, such an attempt to get friendly with a vampire makes her look psychotic. By Jeongyeon’s estimation, this is Mina’s tenth visit, and thus the tenth time she’s scraped the top of Mina’s tolerance.

“This sort of blood is fine for you?”

“For now,” Mina relaxes against the counter. If not for the overwhelmingly large wave of concern rushing over her when she looks at Tzuyu, then a magnificent scolding would’ve been scheduled for this moment. “It’s toxic to us, but we won’t die. And if it’s at least fresh blood, then it won’t kill us. But that’s the least of my worries.”

Somehow, talking to someone—a human—about a world they know little about is the most comforting thing. In a way, it’s easier.

“It’s about another group of people like me,” Mina starts. Jeongyeon doesn’t keep her thoughts from her face. It’s painfully clear she’s startled by the new information. Mina is also, painfully, aware. “Our families’ history goes back to the beginnings of our existence. I wouldn’t bet on them attacking you.”

Mina tries offering a smile, though it’s a weak attempt.

Unlike Mina, however, Jeongyeon is perfectly capable of consoling someone when a grave expression casts on their face. The scientist fetches something from a cabinet. Unsurprisingly, it’s another blood bag. Slightly larger, cold, with a disturbingly rich colour.

“Cut it like this,” Jeongyeon demonstrates, her finger tracing a line. “You’ll waste less, and Tzuyu gets to have more.”

Mina almost laughs. It twinges her lips upwards, looking at the mess on the floor. Tzuyu must’ve been really hungry to do that, but Mina isn’t surprised at the behaviour. It’s what happens when they’re injured.

Jeongyeon is also very earnest, and Mina respects it’s her craft, but she’s also been alive for years. Whether they feed neatly or blowzily was none of her concern.

But Mina appreciates the thought.

“Do you know what happened to her?” Jeongyeon winces when Tzuyu finally looks up. Getting a direct bullet in the eye isn’t exactly eye candy. Though she doesn’t look as nauseating as before, it’s hard to distinguish with the blood staining her mouth.

“I’m placing my bet on ‘hunters’, _specific_ ones,” Mina bites back the name, kneeling down to examine her. “I could feel her pain. So I lead her here. I hope you weren’t too… overwhelmed by her arrival. I tried getting here as fast as I could.”

“If you cut out the part where she tried killing me before I hand-cuffed her,” Jeongyeon tosses Tzuyu the keys, taking a step back in the same motion. “Then yeah, came as a breeze.”

“I’m sorry,” Mina replies with an unnatural sincerity. “I know you gave me a phone, but it took me a while to figure out how to call you.”

To Jeongyeon, Mina apologising is the most surprising thing. “I can’t blame you. What are you planning now?”

“I’m going to kill her,” Mina says. “The one who did this.”

In an apartment building eighty-four floors up, Nayeon says the same thing.

Excluding the council, Nayeon still has some people on her side.

Including her best-friends, ever loyal and faithful, and the rest of her coven that had gone into purposeful hiding ever since she got sentenced. Even if she had lost her posse of officials that grated her ears down to flinching whenever they offered their advice, Jihyo and Dahyun naturally fitted themselves into the spot.

She had missed the way people greeted her on sight.

Now she’s stuck arguing to her wit’s end.

“I think it’s perfectly rational.”

“You don’t even know it’s her,” Jihyo responds like clockwork, her head buried completely in her hands. “And if isn’t her, she’s going to declare formal war. What kind of Count tries killing another?”

She had a point. Killing another vampire, a high-ranking one at that, was punishable by death. Or in this case, another gruelling period of war.

Nayeon’s hands flare up before she shrugs. “The Nayeon kind of Count.”

It’s a horrible try at forcing a laugh out of Jihyo, since Dahyun had expressed her dislike for the idea minutes ago and is currently outside in the hallway, trying her best to suppress all thoughts of treason and betrayal.

Sometimes she’s thankful they vary in their tolerance for her, otherwise they’re disturbingly alike. Nayeon knows they’re trying to help, but she can’t shake off the feeling that anything they say might not work, that somehow history is waiting to be repeated.

Nayeon isn’t sure what to say, so she settles on “I’m sorry.” Dahyun is back, her sharp, milky-white teeth turning back to its rounded shape. Stress-induced, Nayeon can only assume.

Jihyo’s lips tighten into a frown. “You don’t have to apologise. We just have to think properly.”

“And maybe without the thought of waging war as the end result,” Nayeon continues, mostly for herself. “I’d still like to hear your ideas.”

All day Dahyun had been thinking, jumping from one possible solution to the next. It’s an unwanted reminder on how she’s half of Nayeon’s lengthy thought process, which to others is just another reminder of her infuriating indecisiveness.

From the top view of the building overlooking the city, she’s almost thankful for the naivety. Life keeps moving, and will eventually end. Theirs is a painful cycle of surviving and grudges that last a lifetime.

“We don’t have to _fight_ to put an end to this,” the united gasp that Dahyun hears proves they hadn’t considered such a thing. It’s never been a sure-fire way of settling things. Anything else came riddled with dishonesty and worry, and well, killing just seemed a lot easier.

“Just talk to her,” Dahyun says.

Nayeon laughs.

Mina knows how fleeting time is, how soon the present becomes the past and the important becomes the irrelevant. What’s left of her home is sat atop of hill worn by age, occupied by her coven that appear only in urgency.

So, really, it’s her and Tzuyu, metres apart in Mina’s bedroom, accompanied only by the small flicker of fire around the walls. Mina closes the curtains before the fusillade of sunlight bursts through, listening to the younger girl’s reasoning.

“What you’re saying is, you don’t want me to go after whoever did this?”

“I think so,” Tzuyu nods sagely, fiddling with the strings of her hoodie. She seemed a stranger amongst everything else.

“ _You think so_ ,” Mina repeats, trying to suppress a scornful laugh. “But now you have to wear an eyepatch.”

“I think it’s cool.”

Hell.

Tzuyu is terminally innocent.

Mina doesn’t want to blame it on her. She doesn’t want to blame it on Tzuyu being attached to her human qualities, so she settles on the projection it’s a disease. It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s ruining her life.

Mina lifts her head in confusion, needing to ascertain Tzuyu’s exact opinion. “And you’re a hundred percent sure?”

Mina finds it unfortunate her family home fits the perfect stereotype of her kind, and that it’s not the cosiest place to arrive at having trekked from the city to the southern parts of the woods. She takes a seat next to Tzuyu on the velvet chaise, sighing. “I’m going to look really lame declaring I’m going to kill someone and then not doing it.”

Tzuyu turns to face her. The confirmation became clear, that Mina had to accept it was somehow her fault. It was useless to console her with vacant words, and maybe she’s partly to blame for seeing Tzuyu be so similar to herself.

“I don’t think you’ll look lame, Mina.”

It’s a softness that doesn’t belong here, Mina is sure of it.

“You’re asking me for permission. Are you sure you even want to?”

“I’ve known you for not even six months,” she considers it. All the possible outcomes. “But I’ve been too scared to act on the council’s urges against me, so here I am. I’m giving you the chance to tell me I can do what I’ve been prepared to do for the last thousand years.”

There’s a silence.

Mina leaves that night.

The smell of lavender tickles her nose.

It’s a surprisingly luxurious place to be searching, and since she had her doubts about Nayeon moving somewhere that matched the extravagance of her previous home, she didn’t expect it to be so urban.

Or so high up.

Her hand hovers over an arrow. Mina had never been familiar with—which she now knows the name of—elevators, or more embarrassingly, the phone Jeongyeon had given her. Taking orders from a human wasn’t exactly the expected behaviour from the species said humans hunted for, but Mina has her exceptions.

First, Jeongyeon is Tzuyu’s friend.

Therefore, Jeongyeon is Mina’s friend-in-law.

And she feels the need to repay her.

To avoid any money getting involved, (Mina will just have to silently mourn for her door) she will instead heed to her counsel, which was a promise to utilise the technology given.

Jeongyeon had told her about maps if she wanted to get around the city. And since Mina is undeniably good at coercing information out of people, she figures this is a step towards laying her adaptations down to rest.

A simple search and she struck gold. An apartment complex.

All that was left was to get closer to the cold, slow pulse.

Before Mina could knock on the door herself, someone—a lavishly dressed Nayeon—opens the door.

“I could feel you from a mile away. What do you want?”

The gall. “I’m letting myself in.”

Nayeon doesn’t succumb to human sensibilities often. But the pure power of shock leaves her frozen in a stiff position at the door, before she realises Mina is already in the living room, staring out the window.

When Nayeon raises her hand, with every intent to hurl the intruder out the window, she’s met with the same stance almost instantaneously, an uncomfortable force pushing against the both of them.

Mina narrows her eyes. “Lower your hand.”

“You,” Nayeon could feel two sharp points of pressure form on her bottom lip. Untimely appearance for Nayeon’s fangs, but there was nothing she could do to force them back in. Anger served more purpose than an emotion she felt far too often. “ _You_ lower your hand.”

It was an uncharacteristically strained tone, as if she were struggling. Nayeon could feel her hand twist against the pressure, but Mina didn’t shift. She took two steps forward, feeling the blood rushing through Nayeon’s hand that desperately tried to push back at a greater force.

“I’m warning you,” Mina declares, her fingers stiff. It wasn’t often she’d use anything else other than the raw power of sharp teeth and natural charm. But against another vampire, it was a feeling Mina had almost forgotten.

On the other hand, Nayeon had plenty of experience sparring with Jihyo and Dahyun. So why she felt utterly weak against Mina remained a mystery.

Nayeon grits her teeth in advance. “No, I’m warning _you._ ”

Ugh.

Mina hates copycats.

She jerks her hand back, then forward.

There’s a deep, percussive thud, and Nayeon’s chest leaps backwards. Pretty unsightly for such a sophisticated woman. Mina’s shadow cast over the room until she eventually made it to her feet, shaking off the remaining sensations in her wrist.

“Do you have no idea who I am?”

Her voice was firm, even curious.

No response.

Instead Mina leisurely leans against Nayeon’s settee, watching the girl recollect herself. It was strange enough something clicked in Mina to match her move, or that she had even overpowered Nayeon at all.

Nayeon sighs, though Mina doesn’t know why.

Her eyes soften at the thought.

It’s a liberal assumption.

Either Nayeon is rethinking her decisions and has realised who she is. Probable, but her face says otherwise.

Or she’s suppressing all urges she has to hurl Mina, once again, out the window, considering she’s just been thwarted across her own apartment and is resigning to post-fight, if Nayeon can bring herself to classify it as that, self-doubts.

Mina proposes it’s the latter. Whether something truly devilish took her place, or whether she was just having a little fun juggling the possible perpetrator that, the voice of Tzuyu in her head reiterates, she will _not_ kill, she’d relish having the upper-hand.

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you tell people you won against me.”

There’s a grit to Nayeon’s hiss, something bitter. The sight of her fangs only makes the girl smile.

Then.

“I’m Mina.”

Nayeon’s eyes bulge once she hears her name. How badly the world must hate her to put her in such a position, she’ll never comprehend.

Nayeon’s body cracks all over before she lets out a satisfied sound. It’s unfair, of course, Nayeon was devising a plan to demonstrate her vengeful lineage and make a (peaceful) foray against Mina’s castle, only for it to be beaten down by events preceding this unfortunate realisation.

If anything, this only fuels Nayeon’s belief she truly is jinxed.

“I can’t say I’m pleased about this,” Nayeon cringes, folding her arms to gather back any sort of authority she had left. Though it’s mostly said to herself. “You did send me into exile.”

“Because you committed a crime,” Mina counters breezily. Though something is off. “Why are you just standing there?”

“Apparently, I have to talk. But we both know where talking got me last time.”

The corner of Mina’s lips curve. “At least you’re not killing your own family.”

Mina’s heart, once slowly beating, quickens in tempo. Nayeon’s palms are pushed against her throat, her fingers curling around her neck; pressing and closing.

Mina smiles. Her voice is shaky, but her face is unperturbed by the sound. “You’re getting brave.”

It was stupid. Anger curled hot and unstoppable in her gut, like a blazing inferno that wanted to burn her from the inside out. If managing to avoid her for a decade ends like this, then Nayeon will graciously accept it.

“I have nothing to lose.”

Mina’s head twitches towards the door at the same time. Unfamiliar blood. She had gotten used to Nayeon’s by now.

“Your friends are coming. I’ll make it quick.”

The creeping realisation that overcomes them both is half-relieving, but also unexpected. Mina offers a truce. Nayeon’s grip relaxes.

Dahyun would be pleased.

“Wait. Let me get this straight,” Dahyun’s eyes flutter between the crater-like indent in the wall and back to Nayeon, nursing down blood she had unnecessarily poured into a wine glass. “You… you _won_.”

“So why are you drinking that?”

“Because… I can,” Nayeon tries, immediately going back to the safety of chugging down her drink.

Jihyo hums noncommittally. “Right, but you won. Won what exactly?”

“And you don’t even feed when you’re hungry,” Dahyun adds. “Something’s fishy.”

Nayeon smiles wryly, placing down her glass. Her hands find their way clasped in front of her crossed legs, her elongated grin doing a wonderful job at screwing it all up for her.

“She threw me against a wall. Happy?”

“ _Oh_.”

Nayeon sighs.

“Not in that way.”

Jihyo straightens. “Oh _._ ”

Tzuyu offers to treat Mina’s throat, and so they end up under the foliage of a large pine tree to the left of the castle, shielded against the intrusion of the morning sun.

The first time Mina had hurt someone, it was the only time she was expected to sit still and be quiet. Her teeth could puncture jelly at most, but the red that came off her mother’s hand made her restless. Most say it’s too young to even develop the desire for blood, and yet it dripped guiltily from her teeth.

Apparently, as she’s heard others say, it was a harmless bite. But she’s always desired more, and became proficient enough to hunt by herself at twelve. Until she met Tzuyu. Since then, it was as if she had lost her appetite, that the taste of blood had plummeted to the depth of dislike she couldn’t register.

It was unusual for a vampire. She even had a human friend.

“Did it hurt?” Tzuyu asks, a rag gently brushing over where Nayeon had dug her nails. It turned Mina’s skin purple.

Mina guides her hand away, her voice rough with exhaustion. “No,” There are some things that don’t need to be admitted. “But I think she hates me even more.”

The horizon reminds her of the silly painting Jeongyeon has in her office, painted with the exact same colours, and blended perfectly. Mina shifts in her place. Tzuyu can only see half of this, or a very odd version of it at best. She can only assume what the world looks like for her now.

“You should stay with Jeongyeon. You’re safer there,” Mina sighs. Thinking she could hone a vampire’s skill on her own was her first mistake. Thinking she could protect one was her second. “I need to deal with things my own way.”

Jihyo, because of a mere few years, is the only one who can override Dahyun’s word when Nayeon isn’t present. It’s an empty threat most of the time, they rarely disagree on matters when it comes to declining every ridiculous proposal Nayeon pushes forward. And having spent thousands of years together trying to just that, they are just as well versed in helping solve every problem Nayeon gets herself into.

This one—this one was an exception. No matter how hard they tried, a solution seemed non-existent. Maybe it was loop, a punishment, but they dismiss the thought every time.

So ending up at the bar owned by the Eastern coven’s witch leader is not a mistake, as much as it seems like it is. From all their drafts to help Nayeon, this was a last resort.

  1. _~~Send appeal #1098 to the Council.~~_
  2. _~~Just ask Nayeon. Hope she doesn’t laugh.~~_
  3. _Visit Sana, get information and try not to die._



Sana did have a track record of holding back killing people for no reason, but Dahyun, who maintains the fact Sana’s not exactly famous for being _nice_ to people like her, didn’t mind erring on the side of absolute caution.

“Do you think she stirs drinks in a cauldron?” Dahyun asks, an unusual perturbed expression on her face.

It aggravates the sharp throbbing behind Jihyo’s eyes when she takes the focus off the building. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m concerned.”

“You’re delusional,” Jihyo argues fondly, approaching the bar’s entrance with heavy steps. Dahyun follows her in, gesturing towards the large gathering of women that don’t seem like they’re there for a fun night and a drink.

As predicted, they both sink at the sight of a familiar face.

“Isn’t she the one that hexed me?” Dahyun whispers.

Jihyo stands on her tip-toes, squinting. “The blonde or the short one?”

“How about both of them?”

A hand is laid on their shoulders, the grip too sultry and inviting for it to be some sort of guard that sussed them out as vampires. Jihyo winces at the unsettling strands of orange that flutter past her field of view.

And, in her expected glory, Sana can’t help but laugh heartily. Of course, she’s leaning over the counter with a victorious stare, having offered them the best seats in the place. Dahyun’s glad she could filter out her nervousness into the din of customers’ murmurs.

Sana wipes a glass, offering a mocking smile. “What can I get you two suckers?”

Of all the names, it had to be insulting and deprecatingly true.

“Nothing.”

“Apple juice, please.”

Jihyo nudges the side of Dahyun, quickly correcting herself, “Nothing, actually. Nothing is fine.”

“That’s a pity,” Sana places down the glass abruptly, her bottom lip jut out into an exaggerated pout. “Well, how about one of our specials? Some peanuts?”

Before Dahyun could give into the strange friendliness, Jihyo releases her hands from the pitiful tangle on her lap, placing her palms on the counter. “We’re not here to profit you, we’re here to talk.”

“Aren’t we talking now?”

“About Nayeon,” Dahyun forces from her throat. She’s not sure if she can handle much more of this odd atmosphere. “And about Mina. We know you use your…”

Sana tilts her head. “Spells?”

“Right, _spells_ , to get information. Information that people like us wouldn’t be able to get.”

There was a justifiable reason for their fear against witches. Vampires, yes, were immortal, but stealing life forces out of other living beings to extend their own life seemed, in a way, more daunting than being able to survive a broken bone.

Which is why Sana was even more intimidating.

As the tale goes, witches built gingerbread houses to lure kids. If they can’t get any kids, they’re forced to trap crows (a vampire’s worst nightmare), frogs and rats, winding up as monstrous and haggard over the decades. But, as Sana runs a bar, a hotspot for youths, draining the force out of them makes her youthful too, and well, it’s much easier to entice someone to drink when you don’t look taken away by age.

Jihyo doesn’t like to think about all the missing person reports.

Sana is intrigued. She swings the cloth over her exposed shoulder, her chin resting on her palm. “And what would you like to know?”

So far, so good. Sana doesn’t seem hostile, which actually, isn’t a good thing, but her eyes glint with a sparkle that sends an unsettling but satisfying chill down Dahyun’s spine.

“Did you happen to shoot Nayeon today?” Jihyo asks promptly. Sana shakes her head amused, but before she can elaborate she’s cut off by—

“We _need_ to know anything about Mina. Anything that could put her before the Council.”

Sana hums low. “Do you have anything that belongs to her?”

Between Jihyo’s fingers is a single strand of jet black hair. Sana lays it in her hand, smirking.

“If you want to view her memories through the eyes of this, be my guest,” Sana gestures them towards the back room. “Momo, handle the bar for me.”

The blonde huffs, glaring seductively when they pass by. Dahyun is nearing her limit.

Jihyo gawks when she walks in. It’s as if the room is submerged in a misty fog, a singular cauldron taking centre with shelves full of ingredients taking up each wall.

“So you actually use those things?”

Sana scoffs. “Cold-iron was a way of killing faerie folk, back in the day at least,” she adds Mina’s strand to the concoction, and numerous other pieces she pinches off the shelves. “Iron was used to kill and bind supernatural creatures. Silver, of course, for you biters.”

A dull red rises from the pot. “So we use it to contain our magic.”

“What if it’s something like a harmless love potion?” Jihyo asks, eyes fixated on the growing cloud of red. It seemed more like a museum visit than a brewing, which again, didn’t seem right.

“We don’t need those when we look like this,” Sana quips, but the two vampires silently express their disgust with a brief look in her direction. Sana exhales indignantly. “While your end result might be a harmless love potion, the intermediate stages might contain all sorts of magic that cause vomiting, diarrhoea, paralysis, and my favourite, death.”

Dahyun straightens abruptly. “Death?”

Sana ignores her shock, smiling instead at the red smoke assembling itself into a picture. A secret, to be more accurate.

“A girl? Is she familiar to you?”

Jihyo shakes her head.

“You won’t be able to, but I can hear them,” Sana pauses temporarily, an ear inching closer to the cauldron. She clasps her hands together dramatically. “She saved her! What a hero.”

Something’s wrong.

“That girl. Do you see that mark?”

Dahyun points at the clearest point she can make out. “She must’ve bit her.”

Sana hums. “Mina is apologising. I’m not sure what for.”

It clicks, and Jihyo turns to Dahyun excitedly. “That’s against the law,” she begins, on the verge of jumping up and down out of relief. “Mina bit a human to save her, that’s—"

“One cannot bring a new vampire into the world by any means other than by birth, or if approved by the Council itself,” Dahyun explains, cutting through Jihyo’s animation, at the sight of Sana’s puzzled face. “In other words, we can’t turn any human we want whenever we want. Hell forbid to save them.”

“Consider me one step into your world,” Sana says.

“We need to tell Nayeon,” Jihyo states, eyes darting between Dahyun and the door. Except, Sana doesn’t provide many of her services for free.

“Not so fast.”

The red mist disappears when Sana raises her hand.

“In exchange, I’ll need some more customers to make into regulars.”

There’s a cunning undertone to it. “ _Youthful_ customers.”

Jihyo nods, already anticipating the ‘or else’ in her head, and well, she wouldn’t like to be threatened again, or witness the devilish grin she makes when she’s up to no good. You never know if she’s scheming a whole plan for the takedown of the entire vampire population, or if she’s doing it to lure you in suggestively.

It gives Jihyo the shivers to guess.

She grips Dahyun’s wrist, avoiding the stares of blonde before she gives in, agreeing enthusiastically until they reach the outside. Dahyun shakes herself off, a bizarre feeling suddenly washing away. Jihyo, too, wiggles peculiarly.

“Were we under a spell that whole time?”

Jihyo grimaces. “I don’t even want to know what it was.”

After 5pm, the sun is not as effective.

So Mina holes up in the tallest watchtower overlooking Seoul until then.

A car stops in front of her before she waves it away. Must be those taxis Jeongyeon speaks of. _Good way to travel,_ Mina remembers, though flying seemed a proper substitute.

Unsurprisingly, she’s also as rigid as the buildings around her. Normally she’d be hidden in a tree awaiting an attack, or looking for an ambush. Instead, she’s glued to the eyes of a rotating door, the ache of her swallow alerting her to the exit of a familiar figure.

Nayeon sighs immediately before Mina could make her presence aware. “You’d get arrested if you murdered me on the streets.”

She’s right. There was far too many people, and having narrowly escaped a road accident when rushing over, Mina didn’t need convincing. Though, as she’s painfully reminded, there’s a truce, no matter how much Nayeon seems to doubt her for it.

“I’m not here to kill you,” she explains. Mina notices the darkest shade of red on Nayeon’s lips. She’s dressed nicely. “Are you going somewhere? Let me go with you.”

Nayeon closes her eyes briefly before cursing, turning around to give her a wan smile. “With you dressed for a funeral? Don’t make me laugh.”

Mina follows her anyway, and Nayeon is unfortunately aware of it.

Where they end up is at a club, a twenty-minute walk away from her apartment. Nayeon enters with ease. Entrance into the place seemed to be a worry quickly crossed off Mina’s concerns, taking one last glance towards the long queue before following her in.

It’s true Nayeon has the tendency to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. But exploiting a couple of drunk humans for free drinks seemed like the only constant in her life.

“I won’t leave until early morning, so don’t bother,” Nayeon says, moving her shoulder away from the two men hurriedly leaving the booth. They scurry away before Mina could catch their faces, and Nayeon sits triumphantly in the middle of the now vacant seats.

She’s all grin, as if a total idiot. Using your powers in public was dangerous.

“For the second time, I’m not going to kill you,” Mina places herself on the end seat, worlds away from Nayeon’s vicinity. “And you shouldn’t compel people in such a crowded place.”

Nayeon takes a sip of the drink left on the table. If she appreciated one human thing, it was the way alcohol made her feel. “So you’re here to kill me _and_ complain. Wonderful.”

“Are you even listening?”

“Well,” Nayeon amends, “maybe not to kill me. But why else would you follow me here?”

Mina makes a quiet noise of discontent, trying to feebly ward off a headache. “I don’t need to answer that, do I?”

Nayeon instead pauses her with a single raised finger, her free hand completely emptying a bottle. “Because I want this to end,” Mina continues as if on cue. “I’ve got my fair share from the council. I’m sure you’ve got yours from… everyone.”

She shoves the leftover glasses out the way, her chin resting on the palm of her hand. “It’s not been so bad,” Nayeon lies with a neutral tone, her expression growing long. Every time she was reminded, she felt like a sore loser.

“I know you haven’t exactly adapted in some ways,” Nayeon looks Mina up and down, from the way her clothes are ill-fitting and black, sucking her into a void she doesn’t want to remember, “but do you see the difference? I get shit on from _everyone_.”

In a way, Mina and Nayeon were similar. They both felt a sense of injustice, in varying amounts and levels. Though Mina knew better than to simply accept that being shit on from everyone was her only gripe. There’s a small cough to ease the silence. It does nothing to stop Nayeon from studying her face.

“Say it,” Nayeon presses.

So she does.

“You blame me.”

The song does a poor attempt at cutting through Nayeon’s booming laugh. Bordering manic, Mina thinks, that maybe she was playing right into what Nayeon wanted. For her to admit it was her fault.

“You seem to forget I was merely ten. Just because I sat there when my parents convicted you doesn’t mean I liked what they did.” Thankfully, the flashing lights mask the tremble in Mina’s lips. She remembers it clearly.

“But you agree with it, don’t you?” Nayeon’s voice was so loud, so thunderous, that Mina gripped the table. It’s an entire three minutes of awkward eye contact between them, but Nayeon still looked partly miserable. There was still hatred in her dull eyes.

Mina nods away the stares in their direction, sighing. “What they did was right.”

Nayeon’s face twitches when she says it, her eyebrows knitting together. There’s something in her that wants to believe that Mina doesn’t mean it. “I’ll always believe they were right. But you’re not the only one that suffered.”

Mina held back her own anger with difficulty. She didn’t like speaking on the past, she knew how she couldn’t do anything about it. “I hated that you were even alive.”

It slips out of her mouth.

“That makes two of us,” Nayeon’s voice is quieter, but it isn’t any calmer. After years of being accused, she had learned to control her temper in these situations. Every time Jihyo and Dahyun brought it up, it seemed a pact to hastily skip past it.

But it’s different this time, vastly.

“I’m being genuine when I say I want this to end. Do you not believe me? You can confirm yourself,” Mina holds her hand out. For vampires, it was easy to tell if someone was telling the truth or not this way. “Here. Take it.”

“Just,” Nayeon rubs her temples. Something in her wanted to see for herself, that Mina’s genuity put itself in her actions. Over the years, words meant little to her. “Just be quiet.”

Nayeon leads her out of the club, now cold and empty. She fixes the length of her dress before continuing on, Mina blindly following behind her. And, with all her power, ignores the instinct to lend her one of her layers.

She could cope with the prickly wind.

“’I won’t leave until early morning, so don’t bother,’” Mina repeats. Nayeon had chucked her belongings into Mina’s arms, which are now full with a heap of stolen bottles and her inconveniently tiny designer bag.

It was barely midnight.

Nayeon holds a hand to her head, shooing away Mina with her free one. If she had stayed next to Mina, loud music, and alcohol at the same time any longer, she’d truly go insane.

So they settle in a park, and Nayeon leads her to a spot she frequents, a bench overlooking a fountain and the playground. They’re sat on opposite ends, an invisible thick fog separating them, sitting as if by chance one of their friends would come to miraculously mediate.

But no one will, so Nayeon throws a question into the air; maybe because she’s out of it, maybe because she’s curious. She’s not sure which.

“Is that what you think of me?”

Mina hums. She’s staring at the birds.

“That I should be treated as a criminal.”

Mina is suddenly still. She would never deviate from her opinion. “Anyone that goes against the law of the council is. You’re no exception.”

“Then I deserve to die—"

“That’s not what I mean.”

That was complicated. Because if Mina said yes, so would Nayeon. That she deserved to die too.

“—and, technically, I have every reason to think you do too,” Nayeon charges on, not heeding the interruption. “You by law, which by the way, _fuck_ the law, and me because naturally, anyone in my position would want you dead.”

“That’s what you think,” Mina breathes. Her gaze doesn’t shift from the source of the chirping. “Time changes a lot of things. They wanted you killed but they spared you instead, and yes, they made your life hell, but my life revolved around you. Every second you were alive was a reminder that my parents eventually wanted you dead.”

There was something about being a vampire that Mina absolutely hated. It was either cut all ties, which in a sense is far worse, or die by forced, prolonged exposure to sunlight. She remembers some rumours to do with the old ritual, that they’d have the whole coven watch you burn while reciting your crimes. As if dying wasn’t already the toughest punishment.

But living away from your own people, having accusations shoved down your throat to the point where considering yourself a vampire seemed redundant. Normally people had nothing left, no family, no coven to support them. In a way, Mina considers Nayeon lucky, though she knows their families would swat away any sympathy for the other.

Enemies stayed enemies until they died. And when they did, they were a triumphant memory.

There’s a grumble in Nayeon’s throat before she speaks. “This would be a lot easier if you just said, you know, _screw my parents, they’re wrong and I know it_.”

“It’s not that easy,” saying it doesn’t make it any easier, but Mina continues anyway, “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. What we know of each other is a bunch of useless stories that paint us as monsters.”

“Monsters?” Nayeon laughs a little.

There was some truth to it. Perhaps too much.

And Mina’s not that superstitious, but on the off-chance Nayeon is glaring right through her then she’d better keep her eyes glued on the birds overhead. Three seagulls flying together, to be exact. Her mother used to keep a pet sparrow, so she’s always been fond of them. But seeing them fly makes her think of something else, that it brings bad luck like pointing at a rainbow does. Or so people say.

“We should just go home,” Mina speaks up after a long break, interrupting her own train of thought. “Isn’t it better to just avoid each—”

But even as Mina mustered up the courage to turn around and face her, the girl in question wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Mina notices the faint red in the distance, just on the edge of where the fountain’s water flows.

Well, Nayeon’s dress isn’t the only red.

There’s the red, veiny egg yolk streaming down from her feet, too.

The red dripping from her chin onto her knees as she knelt.

If Mina didn’t have to take it in before she realised, she would’ve stopped her sooner.

Mina’s hand grab her shoulders, pinning her against the nearby tree. Nayeon doesn’t fight back. In fact, she relaxes. It does nothing to ease the pounding in Mina’s heart and the churning in her head.

Mina looks at her, looking for an answer.

“I did a terrible thing,” Nayeon says between ragged breaths. She doesn’t dare look back down at the floor. Mina tries to ignore the barking of the dog, completely unaware of the situation. “Am I still a monster?”

Mina is twelve when she begins to hunt, and when her parents decide to surprise her.

A wiry lady, and a man with a sunken face glued to her side, approaches Mina. Her room is almost always explicably cold that she barely shivers upon their presence.

She places the toy crow to her side, bowing. “What brings you here?”

“It’s an important day, isn’t it?”

Mina’s voice resonates off the floor, her head parallel. “You remembered.”

“Of course, take a seat.”

Her bed stoops down at the weight of her parents either side of her. It was an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling. Mina fiddles with the loose string on her skirt, her gaze stuck at her feet.

“Happy birthday,” the man says first. His voice is hoarse and deep. Mina only flinches when a hand enters her view, the reflection of the flames from the chandelier the only thing visible off the silver in her hand.

“Happy birthday, darling,” her mother adds, propping her chin up. It’s a knife, cozied into an engraved leather sheath with their family insignia; a poppy and wolf’s bane. “Why don’t you hold it?”

The sound of it cutting through the air makes Mina jump ever so slightly. Her mother holds it by the handle.

Mina squints. Surely not…

“By the blade,” her mother explains. She pulls Mina’s hand out of its clump, her palm shaking at the contact. “Does it hurt?”

Silver burns, Mina learns that day. “I—no…”

“Good,” comes from her left, and “Excellent,” from her right. Mina tries inching away from it, but her grip is stuck against her mother’s tight hold.

“Withstand this. What you learn now you apply in the future. Do you understand?”

Mina wasn’t sure she did.

Truthfully, ‘everything that can go wrong, will go wrong’ is written on Nayeon’s heart indefinitely.

Perhaps Mina’s third mistake is thinking that Nayeon would return her attempts at being civil with equal fervour, or that Nayeon could easily forget being torn away by force from everyone she called a family.

Sometimes, Mina thinks, she’s really, _really_ bad at understanding. That she couldn’t even catch the points where Nayeon was explaining, and she threw them away like they didn’t matter. No one’s opinion mattered other than her parents, and when it came, when it gave her a chance to finally be accepting, she let it go.

It’s what Jeongyeon’s calls ‘screwing it all up’, though Mina’s not sure that’s akin to being late to work for the third time in a row. If Mina tried to do the right thing, then Nayeon would do everything within her power to prove her wrong. A poor attempt at hastily done, restrained comfort—that’s what it was.

For once, if Mina felt like she was doing the right thing, then it was enough for her.

To be carrying most of Nayeon as she dashed through the streets of Seoul, using every alley and blind spots where possible, wondering whether it really _was_ the right thing, or if she was deserving enough to be left there for the humans to convict her instead, had never crossed her mind.

Because, simply, it’s Nayeon.

It was exhausting.

But Mina uses all that’s left in her to reach for the doorbell, belonging to an address she clutched onto the entire way.

Everyone softens into their seats, trying to find something to focus on. Jeongyeon’s eyes scattered Nayeon’s general area, and Nayeon could barely lift her head. Though the sound of Jeongyeon’s cooking finishing is a saviour, and Tzuyu is quick to announce she’ll get it before Jeongyeon can rise from her place.

“You know,” Mina somehow manages, it’s a little apologetic, but it’s rid of any warmth. “I didn’t want my first visit to be like this. This is my problem.”

“Our,” Jeongyeon corrects, sliding the tissue box over to Nayeon’s direction. “ _Our_ problem.”

On the other side of the coffee table, Nayeon is sat, her knees tucked to her chest. Whatever chaos was burning her inside out had died to a single flicker, unable to grow any bigger. So she’s resorted to letting herself sink, just for a little longer.

“If you insist,” Mina relents. She had never seen Jeongyeon outside of her lab coat. “She’s more than a handful.”

Jeongyeon’s grin is subtle, but her eyes crinkle as she shakes her head. “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”

 _She’s not my friend_ , Mina badly wants to say.

But she holds her tongue.

“Maybe it was a good thing befriending you.”

“Because I work with dead bodies?”

“Because you don’t flinch when you see blood outside a body,” Mina corrects.

“Maybe,” Jeongyeon was affected, in other ways. “Tzuyu used to stay holed up over the autopsy table for hours, I was never as detailed as her.”

Mina’s eyes squeeze shut briefly, the all familiar feeling rushing at her. “Did they ask where she went?”

She shrugs. “I told them she quit.”

“But she’s okay,” Jeongyeon adds hurriedly. “I’m okay too. It’s just a different lifestyle.”

Tzuyu’s head peaks from round the corner suddenly. “Food is ready.”

“Is she hungry?” Jeongyeon asks, her head tilting towards Nayeon.

A streak of guilt runs through Mina’s veins. She doesn’t like it. “She’s probably already full.”

Jeongyeon is used to the slew of drunk workmates she gets on Friday nights, when they all decide it’s her turn to host. On the other hand, Mina showing up carrying a girl no-one seems to know seems to beat every single spontaneous visit.

Tzuyu places down her fork, wiping off the sauce on her cheek. She looks between Jeongyeon and Mina quietly. “What happened with her?”

Well. Mina expected it to come sooner or later.

“Well, her name is Nayeon,” Mina says, and only Tzuyu seems to be startled by the revelation that Jeongyeon eyes dart between the two, so she quickly adds, “the one who leads that other group of people. She ‘did something terrible.’”

Tzuyu knocks her food around her plate. “Will she be okay?”

Mina nods, too tired to even think of verbalising her ‘ _you don’t want to know if she will be’_ spiel. The truth was too much to handle, and Jeongyeon would maybe meet the evidence in the morgue sometime in her shift tomorrow. If Mina had calculated correctly, someone would’ve already found Nayeon’s mess on the ground.

Mina spares Jeongyeon a few glances before locking eyes, and the direct exchange draws her up short. “Can you do me a favour?”

She hums, giving her all her attention.

“You’ll get a body in soon; they’ll probably rule it a homicide. The bite mark… we can’t let it be traced back to us,” Tzuyu’s eyes widen, and she tries to muster up a reassuring smile, though it doesn’t look so convincing. Jeongyeon, too, is squinting up the girl in question wincingly. “I need you to lie.”

Jeongyeon shifts in her seat. “I don’t know, Mina—”

“ _Please,_ Jeongyeon.”

Mina begs. It leaves an agonising taste in her mouth.

“The coroner…” Jeongyeon sighs. She’s doubtful, it’s written all over her face. But she knows now that doubt is the last thing Mina needs. “I’ll try my best.”

At eleven, you’re supposed to have fun.

In Nayeon’s case, fun never seemed an option.

The haze that came naturally in every room seemed thicker here, enough to cast complete cover over an unidentifiable face. Nayeon jolts out of her daze and the stake rolls over the cobble tiles beneath her.

The voice raises its pitch, clearer now. “You did it.”

It’s then when she realises her pinafore is soaked, her white blouse stained with something that didn’t belong to her. She had never seen something so fresh, so _red._

Nayeon’s head shakes.

“You killed him, didn’t you?”

Her voice is weaker. Every attempt to sound firm did not nothing to appease the chaos in her head. “I didn’t—I could never…”

“Tonight, you’ll say yes. Confess to everything.”

Nayeon nods. She remembers something her father told her once. _‘Compelling another vampire is against the law.’_ Stay strong, clear your head, and close your eyes. That’s how you avoid it. But Nayeon sat helplessly on the cold floor, agreeing.

She wasn’t strong.

When Nayeon opposes anything she says, and when Mina tries her best convincing her to go out somewhere she won’t disclose, it is more for Nayeon’s sake than her own that she desperately wishes she would just agree.

Though maybe it’s her fault for saying it so cryptically, and ignoring any mention of the word ‘arcade’ on the chance she’d run away once she realised. Paired with what looks like a far too enthusiastic Mina, perhaps she can’t blame Nayeon’s stubbornness.

“Have you been here before?” Mina asks, and Nayeon gives her the look that disagrees highly, and well, any guess that she was more acquainted with any establishment that sold alcohol was a good one.

The bright lights and flickering array of colours forces Nayeon into an unwanted headache. Mina flies through the aisles, pausing occasionally to gasp at the various games and prizes encased. Nayeon had passed this place numerous times when she wandered round the city, and the only thought she had was blocking out the distracting neon sign.

“Are you good at games, Nayeon?” Mina raises an eyebrow, standing next to a claw machine. “For this one, apparently, you move the claw and—”

“I know what to do,” Nayeon buts in, disengaging from Mina’s side, laying all she had on a joystick and button to prove herself.

A plushie falls from the claw, but not down the chute.

Mina laughs. “You’re engaged.”

“In grief,” Nayeon adds, kicking the machine. None of the prizes budge and she’s tempted to just shake it until it falls through, but she composes herself. “But it’s closer to the edge now. Do you see?” She taps on the glass, gesticulating frantically as if next time was a sure win.

It was certainly not. But Mina nods anyway. “Sure, I see. Want another go?”

“Of course,” Mina’s eyes light up that second, and Nayeon gets herself together, “not. Of course not. Isn’t there better things here?”

Nayeon releases her grip from the machine, eyes wandering everywhere but behind her.

Definitely not.

“You’re trying to embarrass me,” Nayeon says once she realises Mina is pointing at another unit of crane games, all with jarring fluorescent coloured plushies and keychains. “Shouldn’t we be doing vampire things? Like sparring over our hatred for each other. Is that not fun to you?”

Mina hums. Aside from being told that half the games in an arcade are rigged, fun didn’t seem absent regardless. She can’t deny there’s truth that exists in whatever Nayeon says, they _should_ be doing that, not what Mina proposes, not what Mina is doing that goes against everything the voice inside her thoughts tells her to do.

“Jeongyeon told me the place where she can enjoy herself is here. I wouldn’t doubt her on that.”

Does Jeongyeon tell her everything? Nayeon folds her arms. “This is dumb. Let’s go to the woods, there’s no human rules there.”

Mina enters a coin into the machine while she complains, a determined look on her face. “And why would I do that?”

“According to you, with no family left, I figured you’re next on my list.”

Mina winces. It’s karma, and a painful reminder. She manages a smile anyway, inching closer to the perfect angle. “Can’t you just agree? I need to segue into something important.”

“Like what?”

“Jeongyeon,” Mina starts, earning a dissatisfied grumble from Nayeon, “she told me her favourite part of this place was the dance machines. Which is where we’re going next.”

Before Nayeon can give her opinion, Mina triumphantly digs out a bunny keychain. She waves it in front of her face, and it’s half-elation before the teasing snaps Nayeon out of her trance.

“It’s cute, isn’t it?”

The bunny quickly disappears into her pocket, into _Mina’s_ coat pocket, which she had lent Nayeon earlier insisting changing into clothes that belonged to Jeongyeon was far worse than offering her own coat—Mina already en route towards the dreaded destination.

Nayeon sighs. “You’re only doing this to keep me from killing you, aren’t you?”

“So you still don’t believe me,” Mina’s feet stood firmly on the stage, her eyes scanning for the perfect song. She gestures Nayeon to join, taking a strange stance next to her.

“Is it so shocking?” Nayeon asks genuinely, her eyes sweeping across the machine and floor with arrows that Mina uses naturally, and it almost seems as if she’s the one who’s spent most of her time in the city, not her. Though she relaxes at Mina’s brief titter, suppressing how affronted she is at the fact Mina’s taking her less and less seriously.

Mina considers it, still entirely consumed with the song selection before she presses on random, shaking her hands and shifting her neck side to side competitively.

“Well, you get used to it,” Mina supposes.

Their feet start scurrying hopelessly across the floor at the end of the countdown. The numbers flying across the screen seem more distracting than Mina actually putting effort in, Nayeon thinks, trying to keep up with the timing. Though losing against Mina seemed a pre-determined event that would follow through Nayeon’s entire life.

Nayeon grumbles, “you’re cheating,” at the same time Mina giggles out a, “you’re horrible”, and it’s almost comical how a game in the dim-lit corner of an arcade gets Nayeon riled up. It’s more disastrous when Mina proclaims reaching her long combo, the drumming in Nayeon’s head resurfacing.

Nayeon’s grip on the handle behind her tightens, holding on for the last few seconds of the song. She shifts from somewhat involuntary enjoyment to irritation, like a reflex.

“If you’re trying to make me forget that I did something _awful_ —to forget everything you did to me—if you think doing normal things with you changes anything—”

Left foot. Right foot.

Though, Mina’s pitch falls off, the concerned face Nayeon never asked for snapping in her direction. “That isn’t why, Nayeon—”

“But it seems like it.”

Nayeon steps on the last arrow, her expression immovable even with the winning announcement on her side of the screen.

“I’m leaving.”

Nayeon arrives back sometime in the evening.

“I was drinking,” Nayeon says when she first enters, not giving it any time to fester its way uncomfortably into a conversation. “So don’t ask where I was.”

Dahyun lays a hand on Jihyo’s leg.

“Tell her later,” she whispers.

“I’ve never seen you wear that,” Jihyo tries, instead. Nayeon pauses at the door of her room, her hand hovering over the handle. Although she wishes her friends boundless curiosity would pity her just this once, she yields at their expectant eyes.

“It’s not mine,” Nayeon says simply, tugging it further over itself. She didn’t want to risk any more questions on why her clothes are blood-stained and well, it was a conversation she just wasn’t willing to have. “Someone left it.”

“Well, we’re both glad you’re back,” Dahyun grins. “Get some rest while you can.”

The click of her door offers a last-minute feeling of comfort when she excuses herself to her room. But then things are even worse than Nayeon expects—she’s wrapped in Mina’s stupid long-coat she had insulted, which she most definitely will come back for, and technically, she’s wrapped in _Mina._ The warmth and familiarity isn’t unsettling, but the way it looks on Nayeon is unnatural. Like it doesn’t belong.

Though it sits on Nayeon’s shoulders perfectly, wraps round her waist with an undeniable solace. Maybe it was selfish to think giving it back would lose everything good she felt right now, and that returning it didn’t have to be an option. Something as easy as this could seep through the wall of stone she surrounded herself in, turning it into a flimsy sheet of paper.

She’s reminded of one thing her local conspiracy fanatic (Dahyun) had told her once, that maybe rocks are soft and squishy until we touch them. Nayeon questioned her theory, but every attempt of Dahyun voluntarily sneaking up on a rock as Nayeon videoed it outnumbered every thought of doubt she had at the moment, no matter how absurd it actually was.

Mina, too, had approached her when she least expected it.

“This is ridiculous,” Nayeon says into the air. Her hands peel away at the pins’ grasp over her, letting the coat fall to the ground. The thought of thinking past her comfort, the thought of possibly finding comfort in _her_. She never thought she’d find a place where she could lose and forget herself and feel wanted, but this is leaps and bounds forward when she figured for increments, only mere centimetres at a time.

“ _You’re_ being ridiculous,” Nayeon corrects herself. There’s a tense hand that runs through her hair when she sets herself on her bed. There wasn’t a lot of times where Nayeon could think. Properly.

It had always been a matter of avoiding, distracting herself from what happened years ago.

It’s a whole other matter when your problem faces you head on.

Nayeon looks at the coat on the floor, the small keychain Mina had won displaced from the safety of her pockets.

It’s simple.

“This doesn’t change anything.”

For the rest of the lonely journey home, Mina goes over what possibly could have _not_ happened. As in, it wouldn’t have ended that way if Mina were more careful, or if she just stopped believing things could change so fast.

Mina’s frown changes easily into a grin when she spots Jeongyeon and Tzuyu in the kitchen. It was almost as if they spent most their time there, trying to decide what to eat, and Mina’s ever-elusive food choices apart from bags of blood probably called for the need of it.

“Where were you? You missed my special breakfast and lunch.”

“You missed toast and salad,” Tzuyu deadpans.

Mina laughs affectionately, hovering over the stove and counters to decode their menu. “Accompanied her home, and… went for a lengthy walk.” She’s glad they accept it so simply.

“Oh,” Jeongyeon hops over to her, sticking her homemade ball of rice and tuna into her mouth, grinning at Mina for a languid moment. Even Mina reciprocated the smile through her full cheeks. “I saved your sharp-toothed ass today.”

It’s more lovingly than as an insult, and Tzuyu rolls her eyes. “ _I_ saved _our_ sharp-toothed asses today.”

Mina’s immediate eyebrow raise tells her that she’s definitely picked up on something, and Jeongyeon stiffens at the cue for an explanation.

“Well, you see, the coroner—it was hard doing it on my own—”

“I compelled him, is what she’s trying to say,” Tzuyu explains contently, but there’s a bout of chaos swirling around in Mina’s head.

“You let her do that?” Mina growls in a syncopated whisper, Tzuyu holding back a laugh. Jeongyeon swallows at the sudden change of tone, waving her hands around in an attempt to save herself and find a suitable explanation, but it’s useless.

“I let her do that,” Jeongyeon repeats.

Mina is tempted to focus her gaze on Jeongyeon, as if an irresponsible guardian over Tzuyu, but it shifts to the younger girl suddenly, the bread dropping from her hand as she freezes.

“Did you make sure no one else was there—”

“Just us two.”

“and that you made _sure_ he couldn’t remember anything—"

“Not a thing.”

“ _especially_ made certain he was fully compelled?”

“Like a hypnotist,” Tzuyu finally breathes through Mina’s wall of concern. Then, a verbal attack on the human once Mina’s eyebrows melt into her pleased smile, “You should’ve stopped talking,” Tzuyu reprehends.

Jeongyeon offers a humoured, half-sincere apology. “Sorry. There’s something intimidating about your glares that lets my words slip.”

She continues catering to her smoking pan, the sound of the exhaust sucking up all the fumes masking Mina’s small, half-suppressed laugh.

“I’m glad that it’s sorted,” Mina says. “I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“She’s saying thank you,” Tzuyu amends.

Jeongyeon’s too preoccupied trying to save their dinner that she hums non-committally. This is how it should’ve gone. Her first visit. It was supposed to be homely, an escape from the stony prison she called home, not an unnerving visit with someone everyone thinks you consider an enemy.

She’s apologetic, almost, for exploiting Jeongyeon in a way where in the city anywhere she was, was a safe haven. But that’s what friends are for, Mina reminds herself of one thing Jeongyeon had told her, not long after their first encounter; that she’d always be there to help, no matter how long it took for her to adjust being buddies with a vampire.

“She’s always staring at you,” Tzuyu says out the blue, possibly urged on by her now-empty plate.

Mina’s head tilts.

“Nayeon—was it? She’s always staring at you.”

Wait.

“Tzuyu, did you follow us?”

Well, it’s not like Tzuyu had much else to do.

“Briefly, just after breakfast when Jeongyeon went to get ingredients for lunch,” Mina sinks into her chair, a huff of realisation leaving her lips. “I could sense you, somehow, so I followed what I felt. I was just curious and… Jeongyeon wanted to watch Dracula.”

“I don’t blame you,” Mina says first. “But you shouldn’t go out on your own like that.”

“Some guy called me a pirate on my way there,” Tzuyu smiles at the thought. Mina’s eyes grow in worry, so she adds, “I sped-walk. He looked drunk, anyway.”

Mina nods, but the mention of Nayeon flushes the past few hours back into her thoughts. She shouldn’t press on, but—

“And Nayeon? What were you saying about her?”

Tzuyu hesitates. Perhaps it’s not her place.

But she does it anyway.

“You never noticed, but she always smiled,” Tzuyu mimics it, failing when she sees Mina’s stifled laugh, not sure if it was actually bad or if she was trying to not hurt her feelings by laughing it off. She continues, clearing her throat. “It faded as quick as it came, though. Like she was holding back.”

“Maybe she is,” Mina says, mostly to herself.

Tzuyu nods, agreeing. “You should talk to her. You’ll have this whole family feud thing over.”

It was more complex than that. There are too many unanswered questions clogging her lungs, an unbearable, incessant churning in her stomach preventing her from asking all of them. But all the time, something in her told her to _care_.

She couldn’t help but care and wonder. Nayeon was on her mind more than she could fathom.

Instead, Mina repeats herself.

“Maybe.”

On the sensation of fear that rages through their bodies at the reminder of Sana, they’re glad, at least, to fulfil her request in some way by setting up posters advertising her bar throughout the city. Dahyun and Jihyo wonder if it’s a narrow avoidance, considering their posters are far from graphically pleasing, but it’s a problem they’ll save for another day.

“Where did you guys go?” Nayeon asks as she emerges from her room, a steaming mug of what seems to be coffee infused with a dark rich red in her hands, and the faint whirr of the washing machine in the background.

Jihyo isn’t sure what’s more surprising: Nayeon is up before 4pm, she is dressed, _adequately_ , for the day, or that clothes are currently being washed and they’re not a miserable mountain in the corner of Nayeon’s room.

“We were putting pos—”

A pale hand covers Jihyo’s mouth abruptly.

“We were running some important errands,” Dahyun corrects, watching Nayeon hum it off and sit on the black chaise facing the television. It’s true, to a degree.

Jihyo’s face crumples into an astonished smile. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“This is the perfect opportunity,” Dahyun suggests, and Jihyo immediately catches on, joining her in the living room. The view is still as a vast as ever. It makes her hopeful.

“This is a one-time thing, really, I’m trying my hardest not to fall into my bad habits. Just for today,” Nayeon announces as soon as they sit down, hands on their knees politely that Nayeon can’t help but address their appeased faces. “Literally just for today.” She reiterates.

There’s a few sympathising hums. It hits a few moments later when the poorly-timed joke delivered on the random sit-com Nayeon turned the television on to doesn’t get a response.

That her being oddly clean isn’t why they’re sat down eyeing her down like a dessert.

Nayeon turns her shoulder to face them, eyebrows furrowed at their identical expressions. “What—what is it?”

“I was thinking,” Dahyun is saying first, hands clasped together as if a business pitch, “we could finally get you, you know, even.”

“Even with Mina, that is,” Jihyo adds on quickly after, Nayeon’s eyes flying between the two in an attempt to make more sense of it.

Mina.

It repeats in Nayeon’s head like a broken record.

“And how do we do that?” Nayeon drawls. Her coffee’s getting cold.

Yes, she had Jihyo and Dahyun, but they only ever understood things in terms of revenge.

Nothing could quite prepare herself for it. There was always a part of her amazed at having two friends that would go out of their way to make her life seem better. Even if Nayeon never asked, if she never brought it up in the first place.

There’s no build-up to this, and something stings when Dahyun grins her way through it. “We found out something about her that can put her against the council.”

Nayeon’s stomach drops. She glances at Jihyo for confirmation that, yes, this is true. It’s the fleshed out, absolute truth that is just an approval away from being put into place. Jihyo nods enthusiastically.

“Apparently,” Nayeon wishes Jihyo didn’t elaborate. “She turned a human to save them, which we all know is _very_ against the law.”

Their eyes are both trained on Nayeon’s face, who tries her best to give a convincing smile and nod. “That’s…” Wrong. Stupid. They should just forget they ever learnt of it. “Amazing. Really, it is.”

“But this is also super serious, right? She’s a council member after all,” Nayeon eyes them with a hidden hope that they’ll say it baseless, that they have nothing to really prove that Mina really did this.

She had stuck to the law like it was her lifeline. It couldn’t be real.

Until.

Nayeon remembers herself in Jeongyeon’s home. Another girl, too. She was pale, but it was unnatural, as if it didn’t suit her. Nayeon fights everything that tells her they’re right. But the faint image of a mark clouds Nayeon’s vision.

“We sort of… sought external help for this. I can say they’re reliable.”

This…

This was awful.

But it felt like an end. To everything.

“Oh,” is the only thing Nayeon manages. Anything else would’ve unmasked the horrible shiver in her voice.

A larger half of her is afraid of being wrong. Of all of this ending up in another mistake. Mina, the only person that took concern for _her_ and not what she selfishly wanted, would have everything fall at her feet at a few simple words.

There’s too much hanging between them. That Nayeon is pushing away something she’s not sure she should be. But the two of them across from her, the people that have been by her side for thousands of years set it all aside and offer her something she would’ve dreamed of earlier in her life.

“We were gonna address this formally to the council tomorrow, but obviously we wanted to let you in on it. So, do you want us to?”

No. But it’s far from firm or certain and Nayeon’s head whirls around before she can make out any coherent thoughts. It should be easy, Nayeon thinks amongst everything else, that it _should_ be. That she should say yes. That being kind and forgiving creates more struggles and that the only way to solve this is through the way she knows best.

Nayeon’s imagination had not given her justice on visualising this moment being swift and satisfying. It was anything but.

“Of course she does,” Dahyun remarks, like it’s a correction.

Nayeon didn’t know.

So she did the only thing she knew how to.

Feel angry.

“Do it.”

It runs off her tongue like a blistering fire.

Dahyun and Jihyo smile.

But something in Nayeon shatters.

The second time someone brings it up is that evening.

Dahyun treats everyone to some stolen blood bags. She’s happy. It’s infectious. Or it used to be. Nayeon frowns at the table.

“You,” Jihyo spares her another plate of takeaway food with her cup of blood. “You deserve it more.”

 _Do I?_ Nayeon wants to say, but its substituted for a short laugh. If she could merge with the sound of laughter, then she’d be more convincing.

“Shall we toast?”

Dahyun and Jihyo both raise their glass, Nayeon slowly following, swept by a wave of guilt so strong it almost blurs her vision. Every clink is a short reassurance, and Nayeon gulps it down not because she’s thirsty.

Maintain her image. That’s all she had to do before seeking refuge in her room didn’t seem like she was trying to avoid the celebrations.

After what seems like an eternity long game of monopoly with two obviously drunken friends, the still-aggrieved Jihyo having let out all her complaints of being jailed for most of the game, concedes to sleep. Dahyun retreats—or stumbles—back to her room.

Nayeon could finally breathe, if only for a bit.

The next day, Jihyo and Dahyun are out. It wouldn’t take them that long for their request to the Council to go through, and that they were probably already summoned to confirm their allegations.

In vampire court, it’s guilty until proven innocent.

And back then, Nayeon had nothing to prove her innocence.

Their absence left Nayeon with eternal possibilities, to keep herself locked in her room for a day longer or go out and make the same mistakes. It was tempting, the latter, that something in her wanted to go against every word inside telling her otherwise.

But Nayeon chooses to witness the evening sun on the rooftop, thinking it could offer whatever comfort it could. She sits on Mina’s coat, now acting as a padding between her and the concrete as a way for a suitable distraction. She didn’t feel like looking at it, but she still needed it.

The warm, dizzying rush of familiarity that cascades down from her heart to her stomach offers her more, but she cuts it off before it could press down any further on her lungs.

It’s the slow, cold blood pulsing through veins she’s become all too familiar with.

“Mina,” Nayeon doesn’t turn, she isn’t sure she deserves it. The horizon isn’t a spitting image of her, but it gives her the same reassurance. “You were struggling to get up here, weren’t you?”

The door closes softly at Mina’s caution. “I couldn’t find the entrance,” Mina admits sheepishly, joining her at the edge. “Good news is that Jeongyeon managed to throw it all under the rug, though.”

Nayeon’s smile is bitter. Almost thankful. If only Mina wasn’t so kind up until the end, it wouldn’t be so hard.

Mina would disappear at any moment. She would get summoned to the council, Nayeon wouldn’t know where, reduced to a single cloud of black that would disappear with the wind.

There was a part of her content knowing that she got what she wanted.

She would _feel_ what Nayeon felt that day, all by herself.

But there was a part of her sick of making mistakes.

“I didn’t need your help,” Nayeon forces herself to say. It’s half-hearted, a tinge of her signature annoyance at the end of her words. It’s the only way she’ll cope. “How are your accomplices?”

It seemed a good diversion. Nayeon knew full well they were probably better off than her at the moment, unknowing of what was about to happen. If she could live in that same blissful ignorance, she’d give up everything.

Every second passes like an hour, and every time Nayeon desperately wishes for it to end, convincing herself she’s prepared, Mina is still there, smiling.

“Jeongyeon can’t cook, and I guess Tzuyu’s adjusting pretty well—with quitting her job, that is,” Mina catches herself in time, but it’s all too useless when Nayeon knows. If she could erase it from her mind, stop it from eating her within, she would do it in a heartbeat.

Mina goes on to talk about the dinner mishaps from the night before, and Nayeon just listens, because all the words she want to say are stuck in her throat. She wants to sidle up to her before it’s all too late. Her hums are empty as she counts away the seconds in her head. She hopes Mina can’t feel her pulse.

The orange glow of the sunset paints itself on Mina’s face like a portrait, defining every single feature on her.

“You’re pretty,” Nayeon whispers as quietly as she can while Mina mumbles on.

And for a moment, Nayeon forgets Mina could hear her too, the small break in her mouth that turns into a faint smile midway into her story.

This was all a mistake.

A mistake Nayeon tried her hardest to steer clear of.

But Mina notices her hands transform.

It doesn’t take long for her to catch on.

She looks at Nayeon, but she doesn’t dare look back.

“It’ll be okay, Nayeon,” she tells herself, out loud, enough to drown out Mina’s stuttering.

But her canines only grow longer, the heels of her palms glued to her ears. Her nails dig into her skin, only faint crescent moons left over. Nayeon looks up at the capering remnants staining the sky.

Mina disappears with it.

Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

The only announcement of a presence in the darkness of the hall was a slight drop in the temperature, and the descent of absolute silence. Mina’s heart stilled, her eyes fluttering across nothingness.

She knew this place, knew it better than anyone else that stood before it. But she knew no better of being thrown into nothing but emptiness than any criminal that stood before her—no, she was a criminal to them too. It was the only explanation to her being torn away from a place she grounded herself into. She knew no better than those just like her.

The first sound. It’s hoarse and deep, and Mina almost shrinks.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

It dropped suddenly. Mina wished it didn’t. She had done everything to hide it, conceal it, did all she could so it would never reach the hands of those who sought to ruin it.

Then, with her silence came the blow that Mina was never prepared for. The words fashioned itself into a knife, sinking it in her with nothing but the cold, black eyes Mina could make out staring at her. Dread tortures her guts, and yet something else, something horrid overwhelms Mina’s whole body.

Nayeon.

It tosses around her mind.

She couldn’t have.

But she did.

Or Mina, characteristically, still doesn’t know how to fix her mistakes.

It contorts her face into unexplainable emotions, the taste of salty blood that fills her mouth when Mina’s teeth sink deeper into her lip than she had ever imagined they could.

“This is all wrong,” Mina pleads. It’s acidic in her mouth. It forces her to pick up her feet in an unbalanced gait, closer to the accusatory source that doesn’t stop feeding assertions through her ears. “I would never do this. I could _never_. You know—you know I wouldn’t.”

This is what Nayeon would’ve felt.

After all, fear is the precursor to bravery, and Mina musters up all that she had left.

“If you present anything that proves your innocence,” the familiar voice in shadows stings, with only one sound to be heard; the sound of her own pulse throbbing in her ears. If she could only _see_ , words wouldn’t mean a thing. “Then you’ll be spared. Do you understand?”

_“Do you understand?”_

Mina was sure she did.

Nayeon runs a hand through the grass. A ladybird escapes from her swoop.

The fountain flows down into the discoloured water surrounding it, filled with coins and leaves, accompanied by the distant murmur of high-pitched voices nearby. It’s not a heavenly harmony, it mixes together like the rough sound of incongruent notes and off-tune instruments.

Just like the footsteps she feels creeping up behind her, Nayeon picks a handful of grass from the soil, desperate to swat it away.

She detests every second she had assumed stealing Mina away from this world would have solved anything at all. And maybe wishes, that if she weren’t a vampire, she wouldn’t have to feel Mina’s presence before she was able to handle it.

Of course Mina came back to this place. That she’d know Nayeon would be here. Anywhere else was suffocating.

Of course.

“You should’ve taken every chance I gave you,” she says, the shiver slipping down her neck like a punishment. Something in her tells her to not turn around, not to face her like she should.

She stays still, plucking at the grass harshly at every root, as if she was picking at herself. She keeps going. She would’ve lost herself right then otherwise.

But the silence prolongs. It ate away at her conscience like a parasite, urging Nayeon to spill everything. Something Mina didn’t want to hear.

“I wish you never trusted me,” Nayeon chokes out. Mina winces.

Her gaze is lost, but it casts upwards with every ounce of strength Nayeon could offer. It’s an invitation to Mina, to say what she wants.

To be mad.

Hell, to kill her right there if she wanted to.

She should be angry.

Seething.

But her voice is neutral, and it tugs at Nayeon relentlessly.

“I wanted so badly to think you were different,” Mina starts. Her eyes cut through Nayeon like a guillotine. “And that somewhere along the way, I started to care about you.”

Nayeon stands, though it’s no secret her legs would give way at any chance it gets.

“Are you satisfied now?”

Nayeon didn’t have a response. It wasn’t a loss for a words, it was a lack of good ones. But she shakes her head instead, the speed growing erratically. Hatred didn’t have a definition. It seemed the most complicated word Nayeon knew.

A warmth enveloped her hand, the grip gentle. Then, stillness. Nayeon’s head rose from the miserable limp she forced herself into, Mina’s hand intertwining roughly. It was a perfect fit.

“You’re not lying,” Mina adds, and there’s a relief to her tone that makes Nayeon believe, just for a second, she had done nothing wrong at all. “So why?”

Nayeon was silent again. And then, “I don’t know.”

That wasn’t what Nayeon was expecting. She was undeserving of it. Of everything.

Something burned inside of her.

“Why—why are you nice to me?”

In the aftermath of Nayeon’s broken shout, the silence seemed deafening. It muted everything else; the water, the happy screams, the wild beat of her heart.

“You shouldn’t be nice to me,” softer. “Why are you? When the council— _fuck_ , the council—they’ll punish you. Just like me. So why?”

The question echoes in the air.

“Because I still care.”

Nayeon wanted to cry at the cruelty. “You really think I’m worth so much fuss?”

“Every bit of it.”

Her eyes aren’t the colour of hatred Nayeon expected to them to be. They’re soft, pitiful.

It’s not how it’s supposed to be, Nayeon repeats. Over and over again.

“I used to think you finally dying would solve things. That I wouldn’t hear your name ever again, that’s why I hated you. But I knew, from the very beginning, I never did.”

And again.

Mina feels as if she’s stood on the edge of the rooftop. It would be easy enough to take another step forward, and forget everything.

“I don’t hate you.”

The voice in her head struggles to keep in tempo with everything else, but Nayeon presses on.

“Don’t you understand? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m always going to care.”

Distantly, Nayeon can feel the slow rush of blood through Mina’s heart. It’s too calm. But Mina is unflinching, nothing but hope in her eyes. _Hate me,_ Nayeon wants to beg. But she kneels instead, nothing but her hand in Mina’s keeping her from falling completely.

Nayeon’s forehead places itself against Mina’s body, her free hand gripped helplessly onto her coat, as if letting go would let everything else around her crumble.

“We can help each other. I know it.”

Mina’s hand runs through Nayeon’s hair. Every strand falls back into place at every brush. It’s warm. She’s warm.

“Okay,” Nayeon breathes. Maybe for the first time. “Don’t leave.”

And definitely, for the first time in a while, Nayeon smiles. Mina feels it against her clothes, the comfort from her happiness.

Whether it was how nothing weighed down on Nayeon’s shoulders, or that she belonged—it was hard to pick one.

But Nayeon knew she didn’t have to struggle on her own. Not anymore.

“Did you think this would happen?” Mina asks, her voice low.

“Who knows,” Nayeon finally rises. “I think I would’ve killed you in another universe.”

Mina scoffs. “You’re an idiot.”

In that moment, Mina’s arms squeeze a fraction tighter and Nayeon breathes slowly, her body melting into Mina’s as every muscle lost its tension to the summer air.

This was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> my brain is mush


End file.
